Gardening

Last weekend I tilled a couple of small garden spots in m yard.  They had never been tilled before.  Previously, I had always just turned them over with a spade before planting.  I am thinking that this tilling, with the compost I added, will make a big difference in my heavy-clay back yard.

I planted three different tomato plants (three different varieties: Rapunzel, Mortgage Lifter, and … I forget the third).  I also planted three basil plants, plus a Culver’s root plant (purely decorative, a native flower).

Yesterday I received some seeds I ordered.  Butterfly milkweed, plus a bonus of rose milkweed.  After reading about them on the internet, it looks like I should cold-stratify them by putting them in a damp paper towel or wet sand in the refrigerator for about 30 days before sowing them.  I’m kind of excited about them.

Metal Detecting 4-24-15

Last Friday I spent a few hours metal detecting near the house of a lady Kim works with.  In the first couple of minutes, I hit a nice signal by the back walkway, and started digging.  About an inch down I uncovered the grave marker for Copper the dog (1965 - 1969), and decided that I had better move to another spot. ("Oh, yes!" said the lady who owns the property, when I mentioned it to her later. "The previous owner had three dogs. They're all by the sidewalk.")

I surveyed different spots around the yard. I found four pennies, a dime, a wing nut, a bolt, a nail, two pull tabs, several bits of gutter flashing and can slaw (I hate gutter flashing and can slaw).  Finally, right before I left, I found this quarter-dollar:

This first photo I took because it's the first 2015 coin I have found.  Looking through the change, there were quite a few more, so I guess they have been around and I just didn't notice them.  I think this Homestead Monument quarter has a nice design; almost-but-not-quite symmetrical, rather bold, nice textures without being too busy. I've seen better, but as far as our recent quarters go this one is one of the good ones.

I found this in change and thought it was funny because it sure looks like it was found by a metal detectorist. Discolored, dirt-encrusted, like the ones I pull out of the ground. Someone dug this up in the recent past, I bet.

And speaking of which, I did some detecting for the first time in many months. A couple of months ago, as I was entering my house, I dropped a large coin--either a half dollar or a dollar. It hit the concrete one time (Kim and I both heard it) and then disappeared. I thought it must have fallen into the snow.

So a few days ago, I got out the detector and searched all around our porch and sidewalk. I did not find my big coin, but I did find $.68 (including the quarter and a few pennies from the back yard).  Some of it is from the past ten years, so it was lost by our family; some of it had been there longer, I am sure. I never have thoroughly searched our yard, so I am sure there is more change around.

...But where did that big coin go? I think it might be lodged up against the porch or in the bushes where I can't get to it, and where it's masked from my metal detector by its proximity to the downspout, underground pipes, buried scraps of gutter flashing, etc. Darn it! Maybe it will turn up. I think it was a big ol' Eisenhower dollar, so it should have been hard for it to hide.

Another photo from Shaker Village

Draft horses at Shaker Village

Undulatus

Visiting Daniel Boone's Grave

On our visit to Frankfort a couple of weeks ago, we went by the grave of Daniel and Rebecca Boone in Frankfort Cemetery.  The view of Frankfort and the Kentucky River was nice from there.

Nearby was the grave of Elison Williamson, "Friend and Companion of Daniel Boon."  My Google searches have turned up no information on Mr. Williamson, so he remains a mystery to me.

Also nearby were the graves of some Bibbs, my distant kin.

dream

A couple of nights ago I dreamed that I was running a saloon in the old west.  Some woman came in and ordered a pitcher of beer, but refused to pay for it, and my staff were angry with her.  She ended up spitting in the pitcher of beer and cussing at us. We'd had trouble with her before.  There was also a guy there who was on the run from bounty hunters, but he was going out to where they were--to confront them.  He did not expect to return, which was sad, because he was a nice guy.  So he was preparing to leave, and meanwhile my staff was grabbing this woman and holder her upside down, trying to shake money out of her pockets, and I finally told everyone, "Meet me back in my office NOW!" because I was going to start teaching everyone about conflict de-escalation.  Then I woke up.

Shaker Village at Pleasant Hill

Last week, during spring break, we visited Shaker Village at Pleasant Hill.  It was my third (I think) time there, although I had not been there in more than ten years.  It's a beautiful locale, and I find the history of the place fascinating.  The people who work there are top-notch, and the displays are fun to look at.  While there we watched a sheep-shearing demo, saw lots of baby animals, enjoyed a presentation of Shaker worship and music, and toured the numerous old buildings (some more than 200 years old.) Lots of fun.

gardening

Yesterday I put in some work on the garden. I had done a little work already, planting some carrot and spinach seeds, but this weekend was the first time I was able to devote a real chunk of time (probably 5 hours) to it.  I moved around some perennials, weeded, turned over some soil, raked out some old stuff, and spent a significant amount of time staring at the garden trying to figure out what I needed to do.  There is a lot still to work on, however; it really feels like I hardly got started.

Ohio River at Flood Stage: 29.9 Feet, During and After photos.

Here are some photos from the week before last, alongside photos from a couple of days ago.  The water was right around 29.9 feet on the upper gauge at Louisville.  The river is actually back behind the houses you can see in the distance in these photos.  The school campus is right near where Little Goose Creek hits the Ohio, so I guess most of the water here is actually flowing from Little Goose Creek.

We spent some time this past Saturday cleaning the greenhouse, which was a mess.

In some part of the fields, areas where I often walk and kids play, the water was 5 feet or more deep.

The school's athletic field. The greenhouse had thigh-deep water, and parts of the field where the cross country team usually runs were shoulder-deep.

The bottom half of the lower parking lot/drive was flooded.  The field beyond, used for some overflow parking for school events, was 5-6 feet under water in spots.

When I think about this being all up and down the river, it really seems like an awful lot of water!

Some pictures from the summer of 1987

Ball State Pre College Visual Arts Program, 1987

Ball State Pre College Visual Arts Program, 1987

I am still in touch with a couple of people from this 2-week program, but I only have frequent contact with one of them (via Facebook.)  There are a quite a few more I'd like to run into again.

Cooking

I like it when I wing something for dinner and it comes out delicious. Tonight I wanted something to go alongside or atop some cheese tortellini. I had frozen fajita chicken strip (unseasoned) and 3/4 of a white onion and so thought maybe I could use those. I ended up simmering and sautéing them with minced garlic, chopped kale, and yellow squash. Added a little balsamic vinegar, salt, and pepper. It was good.  I am not keen on, nor good with, elaborate recipes, but at least I occasionally have a knack for figuring out what order in which to throw stuff in the skillet and for how long. I rarely cook with kale, and was nervous it would not work out, but the kale was the best part. It really soaked up the onion and garlic flavor.

Ohio River flooding in Louisville

Two days ago (Sunday) we drove down to check out the flooding.  This first photo is the view from the top of the steps of Virginia Chance School on Lime Kiln Lane.  A fellow was getting a small boat ready.  He cruised around the fields for a while.

This is a broad panaromic shot of the road and school field.  The school greenhouse is knee-deep (I estimate, anyway) in water.  Speaking of knee-deep, I could hear a lot of frogs. Upland chorus frogs, I think, but I don't know for sure.

Some people were driving or wading through the water to get to their homes on River Road.  Kim (who is at left in this picture) and I shut the school parking lot gates so people would not be inclined to park there--the top of the lot was still dry, but only a foot above the water, and although it was not forecast to rise much more we thought closing it off would be a wise move.

Flooding on Lime Kiln Lane.

Pity the poor tiny people who live in this tiny house!  Actually, it's used as a tool shed.

I spotted this fishing spider crossing the road from 30 feet away. He was big!

Miniatures

Last weekend I had some grand plans to work on a pen and ink cityscape of the Louisville skyline, and also to spend time gaming with some friends.  I also was going to work some more on a portrait someone asked me to do. The rest of my family was going to be gone, so I figured I’d have plenty of time.  Unfortunately, one of my daughters was sick over the weekend, so I stayed near her and tried to keep her happy and comfortable.  I did not want to work in another room—not because she was very ill, but because she was so annoyed and uncomfortable so much of the time, feeling tired and knowing that the weather was gorgeous and her sister was out having fun, and I didn’t want her to feel ignored.  So I stayed mostly in the room with her, and we watched a lot of her favorite shows.  But I did manage to get some pen and ink done while sitting on the couch (the city scape, which is proceeding well).

I also did something I used to do all the time, but which I’ve done very little of over the past 20 years:  painting miniatures.  I sat on the couch and painted a couple of figures.  The first is a Shadowrun troll street samurai (which I intend to use for my character in a current game, even though he looks nothing like my character, except for his size and homeliness).  The second is a halfling from a recent Reaper Minis Bones Kickstarter release that I went in on with some friends for an assortment of figures.

I’m pretty happy with how they turned out, considering that most of my paint is either between 10 and 20 years old, cheap craft store paint, or both.  In fact, I now wish I had spent just a little more time with my X-acto knife and metal files cleaning up the flash lines and cuds before I started painting.

Reaper Minis Bones Halfling

Shadowrun troll street samurai (front)

(back)

High Concept

I sent this to my pal Gary:

"I’m working on an idea for a TV series with which I want to approach Showtime.  This will be in the vein of that Resurrection show, and also HBO’s “Leftovers,” with hints of ABC’s “FlashForward” and “Lost.”  The overall plot framework:  A secret army research facility in Lexington, KY suffers a mysterious alert and goes on “lockdown.”  Suddenly, everyone in a 40 mile radius suffers from continuous, uninterrupted flatulence: everyone sounds a little different, but it’s non-stop, like droning whistles and clapping.  When more than 5 people are in the same room it’s hard to hear conversations.  An investigative reporter who was checking out the secret facility when this occurred will try to expose the cause, but government agents will try to shut him down.  The lead government agent was actually out of town during “The Occurrence,” and he comes back to Lexington to kill the reporter. However, he is also conflicted, because his wife and teenaged daughters are now passing gas continuously, and he wants to help them, and part of him also wants to help the reporter.  It turns out even house pets are affected, but animals that can’t pass gas, like hamsters, just detonate.  I’m planning on a J. J. Abrams-like ending in which the cause is revealed to be time-traveling ghosts with forbidden lusts, or you know, whatever.  I might need a little help with the script for the pilot. You in?"

Snowy back yard

My Brackets! Hooray for Mad Marchness.

Mice & Mystics on a snow day

During our snow day off, we made it through a chapter of Mice & Mystics. It had been so long since we had played, we forgot where we had left off. After we started playing, we realized that we had already played through this chapter.  At any rate, we made it through again, this time more successfully than ever before.  The girls had fun and want to play again soon.

Mouse heroes vs. elite rat archers

Sparkling tree

I took this yesterday, home for a snow day.

Snowy drive in to work

I took this photo on my drive into work this morning. We had a delayed opening.  It was snowing a little before I left.  Right when I departed my house, it started coming down hard.  The roads were all bad, visibility varied between 50 yards and a quarter mile, and traffic was slow.  Finally, at the turning lane at Westport and Hurstbourne, things came to a standstill for 15 minutes while a couple was pulled out of a snowbank.  While I waited, the snow stopped and the sky brightened.  The last bit of the drive wasn’t as bad, mostly slush, and I got the sense that at least the main roads would be clear if the snow held off a while.